


Legilimency for Dummies

by duplicity



Series: How to Win (Potter's) Friends and Influence People (of Wizarding Britain) by Tom Riddle [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alex the Snake, Animal Death, Childhood, Gen, Growing Up, Humor, Legilimency, POV Tom Riddle, Plotting, Scheming, Snakes, Unreliable Narrator, Wool's Orphanage (Harry Potter), Young Tom Riddle, general little tom bullshit, he has no friends except, i mean if the unreliable part isn't obvious i haven't done my job, things tom does are hit or miss, tom grows up and it's downhill from there, tom is a WEIRD CHILD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-24 11:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duplicity/pseuds/duplicity
Summary: Here he was, expending a significant amount of his mental energy to keep his thoughts regulated and normal, and what did he have to show for it? People thinking he was abnormal and creepy for a five year old. That was what he had to show for all his hard work. It was patently unfair.Tom Riddle has a natural affinity towards passive legilimency. He grows up completely convinced everyone around him can also read minds, but they are too stupid to utilize the skill properly. Being surrounded by idiots is hard.





	Legilimency for Dummies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waitingondaisies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingondaisies/gifts).

> The exact prompt which started this:
> 
> **[@waitingondaisies:](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waitingondaisies/pseuds/waitingondaisies)** hot headcanon here: what if Tom had a natural affinity for passive legilimency and hearing the thoughts of everyone around him which lead to him knowing about how “two-faced” all the orphans at the orphanage were leading to him not feeling bad about robbing them and then when he gets to Hogwarts there’s so much thought that despite his best efforts he begins a slow slide into insanity and part of the reason dumbledore has his hackles up with Tom from the get-go is bc he felt the passive legilimency and assumed from toms control of his other magic that he had control of this too, but really tom had no idea other wizards couldn’t do that until he was too far gone for it to matter
> 
> This fic starts off semi-cracky and then gets semi-serious. Don't really know how else to describe it. Tom is a very confusing young boy who has strange ideas of right and wrong.
> 
> Semi-serious prequel to 'Pretending to be Harry Potter (and Other Heartwarming Activities)'.
> 
> Fabulous fanart done by the fantastic Sanya, [tomarryherewegoagain](https://tomarryherewegoagain.tumblr.com/post/621663773009281024/) on tumblr!

The very first thing Tom remembered thinking was that other children were really just very stupid. This was known fact, just like the London sky was mostly grey, and grass was always green. Tom Riddle was smart and other children were stupid.

There were many aspects of the world supported this statement. Most obvious was the fact that the other orphans broadcast their thoughts loudly all the time. Tom could always pick up on them. They were constantly thinking thoughts _everywhere_, like a swarm of flies following a horse. As soon as Tom got close enough, or, God forbid, looked them in the eye, it was like being blasted in the face with knowledge.

Mainly the knowledge that they were all conniving, two-faced, little _ liars_. He could always hear them thinking about how strange and creepy he was. It was as though they weren’t even _ trying _ to hide it. And then when they were talking to each other, they’d be thinking completely contradictory things. It was enough to drive anyone mad.

Truthfully, he didn’t see how everyone around him _ hadn’t _ gone mad just from sheer exposure to idiocy. Although, perhaps the fact that they were all idiots tied into this.

What did it matter who said what aloud when Tom could tell that they were lying, when anyone with half a brain could tell that they were lying? The daily pleasantries that were meaningless. The backhanded compliments were ridiculous. The empty reassurances were abhorrent. Tom hated it. He hated the pretense of it all.

Tom, of course, was doing much better at keeping his own public thinking to a minimum. As soon as he realized what was happening around him, he began the strict but sensible process of censoring his thoughts whenever there were other people in a room with him.

Now some of the adults at the orphanage were idiots, too, but Tom wasn’t stupid enough to go around thinking that as loudly and openly like the other ghastly children did.

What was annoying was how Mrs. Cole didn’t seem to care when the rest of the filthy orphans were thinking bad things. He had to listen to her inane ponderings about groceries on a daily basis, and not once did she spare a single consideration to just how deplorable the thoughts of the other children were. And the thoughts were there, they were right there, out in the open; all you had to do was look for them!

Here he was, expending a significant amount of his mental energy to keep his thoughts regulated and normal, and what did he have to show for it? People thinking he was abnormal and creepy for a five year old. That was what he had to show for all his hard work. It was patently unfair.

* * *

Tom turned six, and with his increased brain power he started to make greater plans. He spent hours carefully crafting the perfect shell of ‘good’ thoughts to wear when he was amongst company. Mrs. Cole called him ‘precocious’. The other children still called him ‘strange’.

But Tom had good manners all the time as long as other people were around, and he smiled when the other abominable orphans thought unkind things in his direction. He never jostled for a place in the queues for food and he didn’t get into fights. He ate his vegetables every time, even though eating was boring and repetitive. He was the perfect child, the perfect candidate for adoption.

Despite his efforts, however, it still didn’t happen. Parents would come and go, and always he would hear the same things: he was too _ strange_, too _ odd _ for a child. He would hear that he wasn’t what they were looking for.

Tom didn’t see what other brats had that he didn’t. Surely he was trying harder than anyone here, he never even misbehaved!

So what if he spent hours on his own, staring off into the distance without blinking? That just meant he didn’t need any careful supervision. Parents ought to be queueing out the door and down the path to adopt him.

Clearly his current plans were not working.

Tom began trying to copy the mannerisms of the other repugnant children in the hopes that mimicking their idiocy without actually _ being _ an idiot would still have the desired effect of attracting parents.

But then the pathetic children started getting mad at him for copying them.

What bloody difference did it make if Tom drew the same cat in the same pose with the same small house and the same sky and sun and flowers and blades of grass? Cats didn’t even live in houses. He knew those small houses were specifically for dogs. It wasn’t even a sensible drawing to get upset over! They should all be grateful someone as smart as him was even bothering to acknowledge their appalling ideas.

“Come up with your own ideas, Tom,” wailed Dennis Bishop, and Tom resisted the urge to hit him.

It seemed the fates were conspiring against him. Mrs. Cole tried to get them to be nice to one another, but Tom was no longer interested in associating with the other orphans. They were all lesser than he was, and what was worse was that they refused to acknowledge it.

So Tom was left to sulk and plot on his own, making sure that when he did so it was well out of sight from the rest of the people in Wool’s.

* * *

When Tom turned seven, they started blaming him for things. Blaming him! As though he hadn’t been the absolute picture of perfection for all seven years of his life. Absolutely unfair. Everyone around him was a terrible liar.

Why would he steal Billy’s marbles anyways? They didn’t even _ belong _ to Billy. Billy had taken them from Dennis, which Tom had tried to explain, but Billy denied everything in front of Mrs. Cole, and she believed him, which was stupid because Tom could _ hear him thinking about it. _

“Being nice gets you nowhere,” Tom said to the garden snake. It was a crisp autumn afternoon, and Tom was outside on the grass, lying on his back with the snake curled on his chest. “I’ve been nice my whole life, and look where it got me. All the squalid little children here make fun of me simply because I’m better than them.”

The other orphans didn’t like it when Tom talked to snakes. They screamed at him and thought nasty things when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. But he was always paying attention, because he could always hear them, and even when he tried to tune them out it was very difficult.

Mere eye-contact was all that was necessary for their thoughts to invade his head. And you couldn’t very well talk to people without looking at them. Mrs. Cole, in an attempt to instill manners, insisted that one look people in the eye while talking to them. Tom thought it was stupid, but the other orphans were snitches about the smallest things when the mood struck them.

So Tom had to go out, find a snake, and then hide himself in a nice quiet area so he could finally have a proper conversation with a semi-intelligent being.

“_You sshould eat them_,” the snake suggested.

There were, according to snakes, only three options when it came to making decisions. You either ate it, killed it, or mated with it. Tom didn’t actually know what that last option was, and snake-vocabulary did not extend far enough to explain it, but it didn’t sound any more appealing than eating did.

“They’d taste bad,” Tom told the snake. He’d once paid Dennis five pieces of candy to bite Amy, just out of curiosity. Dennis had gotten punished for it, but had dutifully reported back to Tom that she didn’t taste very good.

Tom had then considered giving Dennis the rest of his candy if he would try biting Mrs. Cole, just to see if adults tasted better than children, but then decided he could probably find more preferable uses for the candy.

“_You sshould kill them_,” said the snake, having now moved onto option two.

“Then I would get into trouble,” Tom started, then stopped. Would he get into trouble? Billy hadn’t gotten in trouble for stealing marbles. And if the children all assumed he was doing bad things anyways, it didn’t really make a difference, did it? The idea of being able to do all the things he wanted without consequences was darkly appealing. He was clever enough to get away with it, he mused.

“_Troubless only if you get caught_.” The snake raised its head to look Tom in the eyes, then bobbed its head up and down in an approximation of a nod. “_Like stealing eggss. Only troubless if the bird findss you and bitess you._”

“Hmm,” said Tom, pulling out a piece of gum from his pocket. He stuck it into his mouth and started chewing on it. “I’ll have to think about this.”

The snake laid back down, and Tom started to blow a large bubble with the gum. He would continue until the gum got too close to the snake, and then the snake would rear up and pop the bubble with its fangs. It was almost like a game.

“You like me, don’t you?” Tom asked the snake, just before he was due to go back inside for supper.

The garden snake lifted its head once more to look at him. “_You’re very warm_.” Then it slithered away.

Ah well, close enough.

Tom stuck his bland chewing gum under the table where Billy normally sat, and then spent all of supper very deliberately not thinking about it.

Billy got in trouble for the gum despite his vocal protests, and Tom cornered him later when no one else was around. Tom had rapped on the door of Billy’s room with two short, precise knocks. Billy had opened it blearily, only for Tom’s face to come into view.

The hallway was quiet except for the two of them, and the area was dark except for the candle Tom had in his hands. 

The tension was delightful. Billy seemed quite frightened before a thin veneer of bravado fell over his round features.

“The gum was for getting me in trouble with the marbles,” Tom said calmly, enunciating the words. He wanted to be very clear that the gum had been intentional. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Billy stared defiantly back for all of a half-second before jerking his gaze away from Tom’s cold, sharp expression. Tom could hear Billy very loudly thinking about his revenge. What an idiot boy, Tom thought. Billy had absolutely no self-restraint and that would be his downfall.

Smirking, Tom blew the candle out, plunging the hallway into darkness. Billy made a sound of shock or terror, Tom didn’t much care which. Tom turned away to return to his room.

Tom plotted all evening while everyone was asleep, because that was when he could think whatever he wanted. The unfortunate side effect of this meant it was a challenge to not fall face-first into his oatmeal the next morning.

Billy got in trouble for five more things that week, and Tom decided that the snake’s advice held some merit after all.

* * *

When Tom turned eight, he realized something very important. Adults didn’t pick up on thoughts the way children did.

It was the only explanation that made sense! It explained why justice was never served, and why the orphan brats spent all their time bickering over petty things.

But that part of it wasn’t important in the scheme of things. Tom had big plans for his future. He was not going to grow up and lose his ability to hear thoughts. He was going to be a powerful adult who could read minds.

People at the orphanage were constantly underestimating his ability to lie down for very long periods of time and come up with incredibly clever things. All of his current plans were perfect examples of that.

But they did keep insisting that he do things he didn’t want to do. Tom thought that having to get up to use the loo when there was proper thinking to be done was ridiculous. How was anyone supposed to get anything _ done _ when people spent half their time unconscious, and the other half doing mundane things like eating and bathing? God knew how much of his brain power was already devoted to breathing with his lungs and keeping his heart going.

Tom had already discarded the unnecessary burden of having to consciously keep himself upright by doing all of his most important thinking while horizontal. But there were probably dozens of other ways to free up brain power that he hadn’t even thought of yet because _ he didn’t have the brain power for it_.

This thought tortured him constantly, so he made himself stop thinking about it. It wouldn’t do to waste resources on worrying. He only had to hope that he would someday achieve greatness such as maximizing the use of his entire brain. Then he could prioritize all of his most important ideas and rest assured that everything he attempted would execute itself perfectly.

Right now, though, it was time to start doing things his way, however he wanted to, however he could get them done. Tom filled the old wooden cupboard in his room with Billy’s marbles, a yo-yo, a metal car, and three little toy soldiers. These trinkets were his trophies, proficiently acquired from the other orphans. Proof that he was smarter, that he was better. The lion’s share of goods at Wool’s.

The whispers and thoughts continued, this time with a vengeance. None of them could prove it was Tom who stole things, and they were loathe to point fingers in front of Mrs. Cole when there was no sure way to know it would get Tom in trouble.

Tom was a _ bully_. Tom was a _ freak_. Tom was no good, and no one would ever want him.

They hated and feared him in equal measure, but they weren’t brave enough to oppose him openly. Tom had the power and confidence that they didn’t, and this was what comforted him. He didn’t need them. He didn’t _ need_—

But then, in March, Billy Stubbs got a pet rabbit for his birthday.

It was a novelty in its sweetness, an attraction in its uniqueness. Children clambered to touch it, to pet it, to shower it with affection and attention. Tom watched the wretched thing ensconced in Billy’s arms, a fluffy brown thing with its twitching ears and soft nose, and seethed quietly.

* * *

Tom planned to start age nine with a bang. Quite literally a bang.

He and Billy Stubbs were on very bad terms now. Billy glared at Tom whenever he could, and Tom picked up on many new swear words to add to his already impressive vocabulary.

Tom hated that his birthday was at the end of the year. It made him the youngest of all the children in his age group. And no adults cared about your birthday when they could instead be getting drunk and ringing in the new year. Tom might get some extra dessert and a small present, but he couldn’t count on anything spectacular.

In the months leading up to December, Billy had been particularly irritating. Tom wanted to strangle him sometimes, the same way that snakes crushed their prey before they ate it. Tom wished he could just bribe Dennis with candy to kick Billy down the stairs, but that probably wouldn’t be subtle enough. Even Tom would have difficulty talking his way out of that.

So Tom came up with the perfect plan to rid himself of Billy Stubbs forever.

It was a complicated, elaborate plot, elegant in its design. There were many steps involved, each step more detailed than the last. There was no way he would fail.

Billy would severely, savagely regret ever thinking ‘_Tom is such a miserable little snob_’ within anyone’s hearing distance. He would regret it forever, and he would leave Tom alone.

* * *

Stage one involved sneaking around and generally being very clever. Tom stole Amy’s marbles pouch and waited 24 hours before he started using it to avoid suspicion.

“_Killingss_?” asked the garden snake as it watched Tom fill the burlap pouch with dirt.

Tom’s face was set into grim, serious lines. “Not quite. I’ll tell you when it’s done.” Less risk that someone else would read his plan from the snake’s mind, even though Tom was pretty sure he was the only person here who was advanced enough to read snake minds.

Tom hid the pouch of dirt carefully into his trouser pocket. He then spent the rest of the hour hanging around with the snake like he usually did, carefully keeping his mind calm and devoid of plans.

At dinner time, Tom faked a stomach ache and was allowed to go back to his room early. After making a quick detour to Billy’s room, Tom went to his own bedroom and enjoyed an additional two blissful hours of horizontal existence. 

If one had an eye for detail, one would note the following day that the soles of Billy’s shoes were definitely dirtier than usual. Time to repeat the process, Tom thought to himself. Six more trips of dirt were made over the course of the week, and then stage one was complete.

* * *

Stage two was more complex. Tom knew that Billy never cleaned his room properly. Stage two involved sneaking away randomly over the course of the week. It also involved the extensive use of a pair of scissors and a wooden ruler. Tom had stolen the scissors and ruler from one of the drawers where Mrs. Cole kept her supplies. He’d also pocketed a pack of matches for later.

Tom had to be very careful whenever he snuck away, making notes of who was around him when he did so. There were too many orphans who were irritatingly perceptive.

Tom would think about leaving the room and suddenly he would be asked things like “Tom, can you pass me that book?” and “Tom, do you know where Amy is?” and “Tom, where are you going?”. They _ knew _ he had things he wanted to do, and they insisted on interrogating him anyways.

There was never a moment’s rest; his thoughts always had to be on guard. It was stressful to say the least. But Tom had solid determination on his side. He would win no matter what.

On Sunday evening, Tom told Amy that Billy had gone around saying she only peed the bed because she was looking for attention, and that she had not heard this from him—

_ “That bastard,” Amy seethed, and Tom was mildly impressed at the vocabulary. Amy said she had picked it up during a trip into London. _

On Monday evening, Tom told Dennis that Billy told Amy that Dennis had bitten her for attention because he liked her, and that Dennis had not heard this from him—

_ “I don’t like her!” exclaimed Dennis, pale and horrified. “This is awful, Tom. What do I do if she likes me back? Girls are gross.” _

On Tuesday evening, Tom told Mrs. Cole that Billy was spreading awful rumours around about the other children because he wanted attention—

_ “I see,” Mrs. Cole said, peering suspiciously down at Tom over the tops of her reading glasses. Tom did his best to appear innocent and concerned. _

On Wednesday evening, Tom told Billy he was an idiot, purely because it was true—

_ “Bugger off, Riddle,” said Billy, flipping him the bird. Tom grinned nastily in response. _

On Thursday evening, Tom told Martha, who was one of the helpers, that he had a loose thread on his trousers, and that was when she noticed there was a pair of scissors missing from the drawer—

_ “And there’s a pack of matches missin’,” Martha said worriedly. “I’ll have to tell Mrs. Cole there’s been thievin’ if they don’t turn up soon…” _

The rest of week two: stage two wore on slowly. Tom continued to make use of his ruler and scissors. Billy’s shoes remained dirtier than usual, and Billy was moodier and more easily irritated, rubbing at his eyes in the morning.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, Tom was ready for the inevitable explosion. Billy came down holding a bedsheet that was a good eight inches shorter than it ought to be, yelling until he went red in the face that someone had taken scissors to it.

It went even better than he could have planned. Both Amy and Dennis called out that Billy was only doing it for the attention, and Mrs. Cole told everyone to settle.

Martha got up and said she was going to search the rooms for the scissors thief, and Billy calmed down. At least, he _ was _ calm until Martha came back down holding a pair of scissors and six strips of bedsheets that she had found in Billy’s room. In Billy’s _ messy_, dirty room.

In fact, Billy’s room was so messy that you could probably add a few pouchfuls of dirt on the floor over the course of a week with no one the wiser.

Tom smirked for a whole second before he caught himself and made his face carefully blank. But it was too late now, because Billy was pointing at him and screaming and damn it he needed to be more cautious with what he thought around Billy because that could have been disastrous. Not that Mrs. Cole or Martha believed Billy, but slipping up was losing, and losing was for imbeciles.

In the end, Billy was scolded for ruining his bedsheets, threatened with punishments, and sent to bed early without dessert.

Tom kept his expression nice and bland until it was time for bed, and then, once safely ensconced in the sanctuary of his bedroom, he grinned to his heart’s content as he replayed Billy’s horrified expression over and over again in his mind’s eye.

Success was sweeter than any dessert imaginable. Winning was the best feeling, and he planned on winning _ forever_. He would have to find a way to live forever just so he could continue winning and destroying his enemies.

* * *

Stage three was the third and final step, and it was complex to a point at which Tom even had small doubts to his ability to pull it off. Life would be much easier if he was a snake and Billy was a rat, because then Tom could solve his problems using snake logic and just eat Billy.

Aside from plotting to destroy Billy Stubbs, Tom still had to sit down for meals and remember to use the loo at regular intervals. Being a human person was a lot of work. If only there was a way to delegate those types of tasks. Tom resolved to find a way to avoid having to do all those things as soon as he was powerful enough and clever enough to figure it out, and refocused on destroying Billy.

The intricacy of stage three meant that it took place over the span of the entire month of December.

Billy was still very angry about his sheets, and took to shoving Tom into walls whenever he got the chance. Tom took it in stride, bracing his body in the right ways and using the momentum to project himself off in whatever direction he’d already been going in.

It was amusing to watch Billy work himself into a rage whenever Tom bounced off a wall and continued walking like nothing had happened.

Life’s little pleasures aside, Tom began laying out the groundwork for stage three with vigour. He began to hoard extra empty milk jugs whenever he got the chance. The jugs were filled with water and slowly smuggled into Billy’s room. Tom stashed them in the far corner under the bed where no one would notice. (Tom felt some regret as he knelt down in all of the dirt he’d dumped on the floor of Billy’s room, but sadly the dirt had also been part of the master plan and was therefore unavoidable.) The jugs would be used later on.

Now, Tom knew that Dennis was scared of spiders. It was a rational fear, Tom supposed. Some snakes ate spiders, but snakes were scarier than spiders. So it made sense that pathetic lesser beings like Dennis were afraid of spiders.

Winter had already begun to settle over London. It grew dark outside quickly, and if you listened carefully on some nights you could hear the wind howling. It was, all in all, a perfect atmosphere for mischief.

Tom began to gather a small group of boys every evening to tell scary stories. The first few stories were all unrelated, but Tom began to slip in mentions of spiders. In all the stories that had mentions of spiders, the only endings where the humans survived was if there were exactly two characters in it from start to finish.

The last story, Tom planned, would be a very tragic tale of three friends that split into two groups: one friend on their own and one pair of two. The single friend would die in a descriptive, terrifying way, while the pair that stuck together would be allowed to live.

Now, making up all those stories had taken a lot of time. Tom refused to tell a story that left the other orphans anything other than scared witless. Mrs. Cole was not very happy that a good number of orphans had been waking up from terrible nightmares lately, but no one had snitched on Tom just yet. Likely because no one wanted to be seen as a stinking coward.

“No, I don’t know why the other children think snakes are so terrifying,” Tom said one late afternoon.

“_Ssmart hatchlingss_,” hissed the snake, which was currently looped around Tom’s arm. Ever since the start of the colder weather, the snake was spending more and more time cozying itself up in Tom’s warm bedding. “_Ssnakes are masster predatorss._”

Of course the snake believed it was scary. Tom didn’t think so, but he wasn’t about to say it or think it when the snake was nearby.

“You are,” said Tom agreeably. “Very scary.”

The snake oozed contentment, curling itself closer to Tom’s chest. Tom, well aware his snake friend complained about the cold all the time, rested his hand atop its scaly body, stroking it. It was easy to befriend snakes once you realized where their priorities lay—namely with eating prey and staying warm.

“Now,” Tom continued, “Do you understand the plan?”

“_Yess_,” the snake hissed back.

Tom really ought to get around to giving it (him? her?) a name. However, it was difficult to explain things in snake-concept. The snake didn’t seem to care whether or not it had a name, either, but Tom planned on meeting more snakes eventually. So at some point it would likely get confusing. It seemed like the type of issue he ought to head off before it became a real problem.

“I’m going to call you Alex,” Tom decided.

Alex looked at him blankly from where it sat on the floor, did the uncanny snake-equivalent of a shrug, and wandered away.

* * *

The next morning, Dennis came down to breakfast, chalk-white and withdrawn. Later, he would be heard crying about a large dead spider that had shown up in his room sometime in the middle of the night.

Billy’s temperament had worsened—mostly because Tom was continually unbothered by any mistreatment Billy tried to shove on him—and he had taken to bullying the other children to release his pent up frustrations. So Billy began to pick on Dennis’ fear of spiders which, Tom noted, merely exacerbated the problem.

Tom told Ernest, who bunked with Frank, that he didn’t think Billy deserved to have a room all to himself. This sentiment was met with much head nodding and agreement. Ernest took this idea in stride and began to spread it around like it was his own personal mission to do so.

The children, who had previously united in their fear of Tom, were now united in their dislike for Billy Stubbs. Tom considered this to be justice.

Mrs. Cole was starting to give him odd looks, as though she was reading his mind. Which was preposterous, because even if Tom had been foolish enough to leave his thoughts unguarded around her, if she did know what he was thinking she would have done something already. She was just a paranoid old woman, he thought. Whatever concocted opinions she had about him didn’t matter. There was no evidence behind it, and so Tom would continue on with whatever he pleased.

Everything was still going according to plan, and soon Tom would be successful at his most ambitious plan to date. He still had multiple other plans running, but many of those would not come to fruition for years, if not decades. He knew he had to claim these small victories whenever the opportunities presented themselves.

Plus Billy truly was rather irritating, and Tom would be glad to knock him down as many pegs as there were pegs that existed for one to be knocked down.

* * *

Things were going so well, in fact, that Tom took the entire third week of December off because he felt he deserved it.

Dennis was now seeing spiders whenever he was by himself. This could have been cause to feel guilty, but Tom was going to solve that particular problem shortly anyhow, so the negative consequences were practically non-existent if you looked at it that way.

December 31st inched ever closer, and Tom was eagerly anticipating his birthday for the first time in his entire life. His skin was practically crawling with excitement, and even the mundane thoughts of Martha and Mrs. Cole no longer bothered them as they usually did.

“You’re in a very good mood today,” Martha noted. “Are you excited for Christmas?” She had come into his room to change the bedsheets. It was the day before the night of Christmas Eve. Martha would be leaving Wool’s Orphanage later tonight to spend the holiday with her family.

“My birthday is in a few days,” Tom told her flatly.

Martha’s smile faltered slightly, but she soldiered on. “That’s right! And you’ll be turnin’ nine. That’s a very big number.”

Tom made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat. “Miss Martha,” Tom started in a measured tone, “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes, Tom?” Martha turned to face him. Perhaps she was actually concerned! This was excellent.

“I know I don’t really fit in with the other children, and Billy doesn’t like me very much.” Tom tried to sound as forlorn as he possibly could. He continued, “And I feel as though they might try to get me into trouble because they don’t like me. Billy already tried to blame me for cutting up his bedsheets.”

“Oh, I don’t think they would do that,” Martha said dismissively, fluffing Tom’s pillow once before she straightened back up. Indignation rose up in Tom. Just once, he would have liked to have someone who would listen to him instead of following all of the others.

“I heard them,” Tom tried insisting, although he could already tell Martha wasn’t convinced. “They accuse me of things.”

“I think,” said Martha,” you ought to try spendin’ some more time with them, Tom. You hardly leave your room. If you made more friends, then your troubles would be less.”

Martha always wanted him to be different, to act different. Tom had long since given up emulating the actions and expressions of the other children. It had never gotten him anywhere before, so there was no use in trying it now. Martha was convinced that if Tom could start being a ‘normal boy’, he would eventually find a family willing to have him. Tom didn’t want to be just one of the orphans. He needed to be _ better_.

Tom put a bland smile on his face, nodded attentively at her, and thought about absolutely nothing until she finally left the room. Truly, being smarter than everyone else around him was suffering.

* * *

The rest of the orphanage was bustling during Christmas Eve. The orphans were ridiculously excited for food and presents, and the crises of the past few weeks were now forgotten.

Tom had generously donated all his hoarded candy to the rest of the orphans in hopes of currying as much favour as possible. It definitely seemed to work to some degree, although he’d certainly gotten some strange thoughts and even stranger looks in return. Everyone still thought Tom Riddle was peculiar and unnerving, but perhaps slightly less so than before.

Tom sat through Christmas dinner with his usual poised mask in place, careful not to draw attention to himself. Every so often, he would allow his gaze to drift across the table, picking up on stray thoughts here and there.

Even Billy’s dour mood was lifted by the presence of the holidays. The boy chattered animatedly as he ate a second helping of dessert. Tom let Billy enjoy this last moment of peace out of some lingering impulse to mercy.

Tom himself finished his food quickly and quietly, then left for his room. There was still work to be done. He managed to smuggle two more jugs full of water under Billy’s bed before he decided it would be unwise to linger longer.

From what Tom could tell, Billy never so much as thought about cleaning his room, and the state of the room most definitely reflected that. You’d have assumed after the incident with the scissors and the bedsheets that Billy had learned his lessons about cleanliness, but evidently this was not the case. It was just as messy as it had been when Tom had poured dirt all over the floor.

One more week, Tom told himself, ecstatic. Then all his complicated, detailed plans would finally come together and unfold themselves beautifully.

Tom took a quick detour to his room, then made his way back to where the other orphans were grouped in the main room. He singled out Dennis and pulled the boy aside.

“I’ll give you five sticks of gum if you do a simple favour for me,” Tom began smoothly.

Dennis’ greedy eyes drank in the candy that sat in Tom’s palms. “What do you want me to do, Tom?” Dennis asked suspiciously, but Tom could already hear Dennis thinking about the sweet, sweet taste of bubblegum.

Tom tilted his head benignly, and his mind was beautifully blank as he said, “Oh, don’t worry. It’s nothing too complicated…”

* * *

The day of December 30th dawned. Tom woke up with a huge smile on his face.

Today, he thought to himself, was the beginning of _ everything_. He was absolutely certain that after pulling this off, no one would be able to stop him from accomplishing anything he wanted.

“It’s your birthday tomorrow,” Martha said upon seeing him.

If Tom’s resulting smile was a tad less reserved than normal, Martha didn’t seem to make a note of it.

“I’m excited to turn nine,” Tom said truthfully.

Martha patted his shoulder, pleased at the normal behaviour. Children were usually excited for birthdays. “You’re a good boy, Tom. You’ll have a good family someday.”

He looked up at her. Martha’s eyes were pale and glossy, like a mirror reflecting an overcast blue sky. Martha might have been nice to him, but she was just as hollow and contradictory as everyone else.

_ Poor Tom_, he heard her thinking, _ poor strange boy. _

Tom resisted the urge to sneer. Sometimes Mrs. Cole called their group of miscreants a ‘family’. The entire idea of it was laughable. In all his life, he had yet to meet anyone worthy of the title.

If there was, however, anyone out there with a shred of intelligence, Tom would very much like to meet them. They would make a useful ally.

He had no need for a family that would think snidely to themselves about ‘that strange Riddle boy’ when facing the other way. He wasn’t about to set himself up for disappointment, because people always disappointed him. Tom swore he would never disappoint himself. He wouldn’t let himself become anything less than the best.

* * *

Dennis had hand-delivered Billy Stubbs’ rabbit right to Tom’s room without question later that afternoon.

Tom then had Alex strangle Billy Stubbs’ pet rabbit. It had taken a lot of convincing for the snake to agree to kill and not eat. Tom may or may not have had to promise the lives of a few future pets at Wool’s to seal the bargain.

The rabbit’s body was strung up in the dining room; the perfect distraction. People would be too terrified to even think about looking for Tom Riddle for at least an hour. Dennis would be too horrified to so much as speak a single word. Tom had made sure of it.

So Tom went to Billy’s room and got to work. He lugged out the jugs of water from under the bed and set to soaking the walls and floor. The old wallpaper and wooden floor absorbed liquid easily. Once suitably reassured that the room was mildly protected, Tom withdrew the pack of matches from his shirt pocket.

He frowned. He’d failed to account for the state of the matches _ after _ having sloshed a dozen jugs of water all over the room.

The matches were damp. This was. Unacceptable. Tom glowered fiercely at the matches. He hadn’t come this far to be foiled by some blasted damp matches. Pinching a match between his thumb and forefinger, Tom struck it repeatedly against the packet in an attempt to light it. The match snapped in half, splintering.

Tom swore quietly and colourfully. One picked up a lot of swears when one could read the minds of hapless adults.

He made his way unsuccessfully through three more matches before his temper started to get carried away. Tom was annoyed. He could feel himself getting angrier by the second. All his hard work and planning was not about to go to waste because he’d been too stupid to remember to keep the matches properly dry.

This act was supposed to prove he was superior to all the rest of those pathetic brats. They were nothing, they were ignorant simpletons. Tom was smarter than all of them and he was not going to let _ wet matches _ ruin his plans.

Ripping out the rest of the matches, Tom tried each of them in rapid succession, striking them almost violently against the packet. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He hissed in frustration, his jaw clenching. They would be looking for him soon, once his absence was noted. He had to get this done _ now._

Tom, holding the now empty packet of matches in his hand, felt oddly detached. Like there was something in his body that was not quite a part of him. He held the packet up to eye level with a shaking hand. He wanted there to be fire more than he had ever craved anything in his entire life.

There was a moment where Tom, staring nearly cross eyed at the packet, felt something snap into place.

The empty pack of matches burst into flames.

In his shock, Tom almost didn't register that he was holding something that was literally on fire. Then, hardly pausing to think, he chucked the packet directly onto Billy’s bed.

The flames spread immediately to the sheets and bedding as Tom stood there, transfixed. He felt a puzzling connection to the fire—not quite like he was being pulled towards it, but like he was controlling it. The fire licked across the bed and began eating at the frame, growing faster than Tom could have imagined possible.

Tom’s fingers were clean, unblemished and unburned. He turned his hand this way and that, examining the perfect skin. It was only when the bed frame cracked that Tom was startled back into his surroundings.

He backed out of the room quickly, running down the hall until he reached his own room. Barely managing to refrain from slamming the door shut, Tom grabbed a chair, shoved it up under the doorknob, and collapsed onto his bed, breathing heavily.

Clutching at his hand, Tom waited until his breaths evened out before he sat up again. A sense of triumph was building inside him, bubbling and boiling just beneath the surface. His hand was numb from his own pained grip. Tom slowly slackened his fingers, one by one, afraid that any sudden movement would spark a return of the fire from before. Nothing else strange happened as he released his hand. Tom let out a shaky breath.

Conviction surged through him. This was irrefutable evidence that he had the potential to change the world. He had set the empty packet on fire. He had seen the flames with his own eyes, had watched the fire consume the bed. Even now, there was the faint stench of smoke Tom could smell from his open window. It was real. It was all wondrously, gloriously, impossibly real.

Tom laughed, the sound of it jubilant and freeing. Somewhere, deep inside him, there was a part of him that was capable of greatness. With that, he knew he was going to become everything he had dreamed of and more.

* * *

The inside of Billy’s room was mostly unrecoverable. The walls and floor, somewhat protected by Tom’s waterproofing and the fact that walls had cinder blocks in them, were relatively unscathed. However, all of the furniture was utterly ruined, and the smell of ash still lingered for weeks afterwards.

The combined horror of the fire and the death of Billy’s pet rabbit had shaken the entire institution of Wool’s Orphanage to its core. Billy, to Tom’s never-ending delight, was absolutely inconsolable. The worthless boy wailed and screamed and raged, but there were few children left in the orphanage who wanted to side with Billy Stubbs. The ones that might have knew better; they knew that siding with Billy meant siding against Tom Riddle.

As Tom had planned, Billy became Dennis’ roommate. It had only made sense to stick them together, because poor Dennis had been afraid of walking alone in the dark even just to get to the lavatories! Even the other children agreed; Billy didn’t deserve his own room anyways.

And Dennis—now quieter than he had once been and less prone to nightmares about spiders—also agreed readily, still shaken about the death of the rabbit. He shot Tom quick, frightened glances on occasion. Tom frequently reminded him about his promise to be _ quiet_.

Tom, for his part, was now completely unbothered by the whole thing. Revenge complete, he had moved his focus onto other, more important tasks. Like figuring out how to set things on fire again. And then, from that, wondering what other things he could accomplish if he tried hard enough.

He spent increasing amounts of time isolated from everyone around him. He was tucked away in his room for days, his desk chair shoved against his door. Mrs. Cole thought he was mad. She thought about sending him away. It didn’t matter—none of that mattered—he could stop her whenever he wanted.

There was no one at Wool’s who could make him do anything he didn’t want to do. If Mrs. Cole ever decided to send him away to the madhouse, he would hear of it. He would hear her think about it. And he would stop her. Tom refused to be afraid of what she could do to him anymore. He would show them he wasn’t afraid, that he was the one to be feared.

Anyone who crossed his path would regret it.

“Tom.” Martha was knocking at his door again. “Tom, dear, it’s time for lunch. You should really come out of there.”

Tom was watching the small toy soldier sat upon his desk, his gaze dark and determined. “I’m busy, Martha. I’ll come down for dinner later.”

“You shouldn’t keep missing meals, Tom. It isn’t healthy. Won’t you please come down to eat?” Martha pleaded, her voice muffled from behind the door.

“I will come down later,” Tom said tensely, resisting the urge to snap at her. “I’m not hungry.”

Martha was quiet. Tom could hear her fussing in her head about how to convince him, and it was irritating. He was trying to concentrate; why did she insist on trying to bother him? Tom attempted to block out any further responses, channeling his attention on the little toy model once more.

Eventually, he heard Martha’s footsteps recede from the door. He’d likely get a lecture later for it, but he’d tune that out as well. What use did he have for eating lunch with the other orphans, playing pretend, acting like he was normal? Tom was powerful, and he would only continue to get more powerful the longer he practiced.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Tom crooked a finger at the toy soldier. _ Move_, he willed at it. _ Move this way_.

Minutes and hours passed like this, with only Tom and the sheer force of his will at play. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. There wasn’t any real way to tell what he could or could not do. A lot of what happened, Tom noted, was purely accidental. He didn’t seem to have a proper way of controlling the outcome.

Thinking about the results he wanted did help direct the general effect of his ability, but this did not always hold true. Things still happened in entirely unexpected ways. Tom suspected he was still thinking too _ normally_. He would have to stretch his mind beyond what the mundane could imagine.

Still, Tom thought to himself contentedly, watching as the toy soldier finally toppled over, there was something to be said for the progress he was making.

* * *

The summer before Tom turned ten was the orphanage’s annual seaside trip. Tom’s request to be allowed to stay behind had been blatantly ignored. Sullen with the prospect of spending time with other children his own age, Tom lapsed into silence for most of the journey. Anyone who so much as glanced in his direction was treated to a withering glare.

There was a lingering coolness between Dennis and Billy. Tom knew that the taunting and bullying of before had not been forgiven. Dennis was still rather afraid of spiders, and Billy was still the same arrogant bully he’d always been.

Why Tom had been given the label ‘bully’ when Billy clearly existed to wear it, Tom would never understand.

Dennis, however, had taken to spending time with Amy Benson. Amy, who remembered being teased by Billy, was only too willing to help Dennis pick on his roommate. The two of them, Dennis and Amy, bent heads together and gossiped like they were women of high society. It was ridiculous, and Tom was growing tired of it.

Growing tired of it, he realized, meant he probably ought to do something about it.

There was a good deal of unexplored area further down the coastline. Tom would make sure they all took a walk to see what was there.

If it had been a joke it might have started something like this: Tom, Dennis, and Amy walk into a cavern by the sea…

In this case, the punchline was rather more scary than funny.

* * *

Tom turned ten.

No one wished him a happy birthday. None of the other children were willing to look him in the eyes anymore.

That was fine. Their thoughts were quieter that way.

Mrs. Cole, who had taken to heavy drinking, moved Tom into a small bedroom at the end of a long corridor. The bedframe there was made of iron.

Tom didn’t complain. The size of his room was hardly important to him now. He had goals to achieve.

The pets of anyone who bothered him were fed to Alex. Tom made sure to insinuate that animals were not the only creatures that could go missing. No one could prove it was him either way, and what were a few less orphans in an orphanage? All this said with his most charming smile and a cold tone that could have frozen an entire lake. The other children were even less keen on bothering him after that.

Isolation was his friend. Tom was self-reliant, which meant he was in control.

* * *

One day, when eleven-year-old Tom was plotting as he lay on his bed, there was a double knock at the door.

"Tom? You've got a visitor.” Mrs. Cole edged into the room, just enough to stick her head in. Tom made eye contact with her and began to flip through her thoughts like they were the pages of an old, well-read novel. “This is Mr. Dumberton—sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you—well, I'll let him do it." The matron shook her head as though to clear it of cobwebs, moving aside to allow a tall figure with auburn hair into the room.

The visitor was wearing a velvet suit in a garish plum colour. Tom sat up and blinked as the man walked forwards. He’d not had visitors in years. Not since the incident with the rabbit and the fire.

"How do you do, Tom?" said the visitor, walking forward and holding out his hand.

Tom hesitated. The man was a good deal taller than he was, and it was difficult to gauge what type of child the man expected to see. Mrs. Cole had already filled his head with lies, but who knew what this man thought of them? Tom stood from his bed and reached out to shake hands, then watched as the man pulled out a chair.

"I am Professor Dumbledore."

Professor Dumbledore gazed at Tom calmly. Tom looked back at him, then slowly sat back down on his bed. Dumbledore’s eyes—a clear, crystal blue—seemed to twinkle oddly, even in the dim lighting of Tom’s room. The crystalline nature of those eyes was not indicative of Professor Dumbledore’s thoughts.

For the first time in his entire life, Tom was met with an opaque nothingness. It frightened him.

Perhaps he had been foolish to think that all adults were like the ones at the orphanage. Perhaps Mrs. Cole had, at last, found someone who would pose a suitable threat to Tom. Tom resisted the temptation to fear; he would give nothing away.

“A ‘professor’?” he asked, tone deliberately stiff. “Like a doctor? Does she think I need to be looked at?”

“No, no,” said the self-proclaimed professor. He was smiling, which made Tom dislike him further.

“Tell me the truth,” Tom demanded forcefully, in such a way that had proven useful on some adults in the past.

The professor, Dumbledore or whoever he was, went on smiling, and Tom thought privately that—between the two of them—this man was the one who belonged in an asylum. Tom could still hear nothing of his thoughts, and it was unnerving him more than he cared to show.

"I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school—your new school, if you would like to come."

“Hogwarts,” Tom repeated scornfully. “Is this your way of trying to convince me to go to the asylum? Make up a school and tell me I’ve got a place there? I know they all want to be rid of me; I’m telling you I won’t go and _ you can’t make me_.”

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though Tom hadn’t spoken at all, "is a school for people with special abilities—"

Tom stood up angrily, backing away from his bed and towards the window. "I'm not mad!" He wasn’t about to get himself locked up, he had plans—there were things he was going to do once he was old enough, powerful enough, as soon as he was of age to leave this blasted place.

"I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."

There was silence. Tom froze, his face expressionless, but his eyes flickered back and forth between each of Dumbledore's, trying to find the lie.

"Magic?" he whispered. It seemed… almost too good to be true, to use that word. Magic was the stuff of fairytales; a bedtime story for foolish children. Tom had long thought himself grown out of such ideas.

"That's right," said Dumbledore.

The notion of it fit, somehow. The word felt right. It was an encompassing label for the vast concept of Tom’s abilities. "It's… it's magic, what I can do?"

"What is it that you can do?"

Tom hesitated again, torn. He didn’t trust this Dumbledore, but this was also a unique opportunity for information. Again, Tom cursed the fact that the man’s thoughts were closed off. It would be so much easier to manipulate the information out of him if Tom knew what Dumbledore was expecting of him.

“I can do a lot of things,” Tom began slowly, hoping that this wasn’t some elaborate trick. He could always deny having said anything later. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want without training them.” He bit his lip, unsure whether he should continue or not. What if he had given too much away?

But if this man—Professor Dumbledore—was like Tom, then he had to know what it was like. Dumbledore must understand how it felt to be surrounded by lesser beings and having to pretend all the time. How it felt to know you were better, how you had to prove it so they would fall in line.

“I can make bad things happen to people if I want to,” Tom finished in a soft, hushed tone. “If they’re mean to me or they annoy me.”

Dumbledore was still looking at him, still calm.

Tom, by contrast, was shaking. The excitement was building in him, the realization that he was right. He stumbled half a step and sat back down on the bed. “I knew I was special,” he added, triumphant. “I knew it.”

“Quite right,” said Dumbledore. The smile of before had now faded away. “You are a wizard.”

“And you’re a wizard?” Tom asked, just to be sure.

The man regarded Tom with that maddeningly reticent expression. “I am.”

“Prove it.” The demand slipped out of its own accord. Tom was fervent. He needed to know. There was a ravenous feeling deep in his gut, a part of him that knew that this was what he was truly meant to be: a wizard.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts—"

Tom grew indignant. He was tired of this man looking down upon him like he was a simpleton. "Of course I am!"

"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"

That response smarted. Tom blanched inwardly at it. He had gone too far—his behaviour was out of line. Tom was out of practice, he had grown too used to the people at the orphanage catering to his temper. He needed to remember how to be careful, how to wear the smooth mask of the youthful schoolboy.

"I'm sorry, sir. I meant—please, Professor, could you show me?" Tom tried his best to look regretful of his outburst.

Dumbledore drew something out from an inside pocket of his suit jacket. It looked to Tom like a simple stick of wood, albeit finely shaped and polished like a cane. Then Dumbledore pointed it at Tom’s wardrobe in the corner, and gave the stick a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames.

Tom jumped back to his feet, rounding on Dumbledore, protesting angrily before he even realized what he was doing. But then the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Gaping, Tom looked quickly from the wardrobe to the stick of wood in Dumbledore’s hand. It may have been magic that set the wardrobe on fire, but this man—this _ wizard _—was most definitely insane for deciding to do it.

This Dumbledore was to be taken seriously, Tom decided. At least until Tom could find a way to destroy him. He would have to begin the plotting for this immediately. Dumbledore was the kind of person whose demise would take a lot more than just three stages.

Well, there were some steps that could be done right away, without the need to plan anything at all. “Where can I get one?” Tom asked, gesturing at the wand.

"All in good time," said Dumbledore. "I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe."

And sure enough, a faint rattling could be heard from inside it.

Tom was suddenly, vividly afraid. The feeling was surreal, as though the emotion was finally stretching out its legs after a long period of lying dormant. Tom hated the way it sat in his gut taking up space. He wanted to get rid of it, to dig out the part of him that was weak, to carve it out and crush it.

Dumbledore told him to open the door. The room felt larger, wider as he crossed it. Tom made his way slowly to the cupboard, which continued to tremble as he drew closer. He placed a hand—the hand that had once emerged from fire unscathed—on the handle.

Inside the cupboard were his belongings: his clothes, his shoes, the cardboard box full of stolen toys and candy. The box was shivering, like its insides were trying to climb out.

The box rattled again, and Dumbledore told him to open it up. Tom did his best to do so without shaking. He wondered if Dumbledore would set the box on fire while he was holding it.

"Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?" asked Dumbledore.

Tom threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. He knew Mrs. Cole hadn’t told Dumbledore that, so he supposed Dumbledore must have gotten it out of her head. It was the only explanation that made sense, given Tom’s understanding of the world.

This man was what Tom wanted to be: a powerful adult—no, _ wizard_—who could read minds. And so until Tom got what he wanted out of Dumbledore, he had to be very careful. He had to keep his thoughts to himself, like he had trained himself to do over the course of his childhood.

"Yes, I suppose so, sir," Tom said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Dumbledore told him to open the box. Tom did so, tilting the box towards the bed, watching impassively as the contents spilled out. Tom didn’t dare look at them, but he could hear silence fall over the room as the box stopped shaking. He kept his gaze fixed at the floor.

"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," said Dumbledore calmly, putting his wooden stick, his _ wand_, back into his jacket. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."

Tom doubted that. Thieving wasn’t tolerated at Wool’s either, but that didn’t stop anyone. You just had to be clever enough to get away with it. And Tom vowed he would become more clever than Dumbledore. “Yes, sir,” he replied obediently, even though the words left the taste of ashes in his mouth.

"At Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, "we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have—inadvertently, I am sure—been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school.”

But Tom _ could _ control it. Somewhat, anyways. He was already teaching himself. Hogwarts, he hoped, would show him how he could create his own magic. He would learn how to force magic to do what he wanted. Dumbledore kept on talking: about a Ministry, about wizard laws.

“Yes sir,” Tom repeated, for lack of a better response. The initial excitement of magic was wearing off, and the natural suspicion of the stranger in his room was beginning to return. Tom slowly began to gather the items back into the box, aware of Dumbledore’s watchful gaze.

Then, when it was done, Tom straightened. He looked at Dumbledore and said, “I haven’t got any money, you know.”

But Dumbledore had an answer to that as well. The man drew a leather money-pouch from his pocket. Tom took it and opened it up. Inside was a multitude of different sized coins. He picked out a silver coin and held it up to eye-level. Was it genuine silver? It seemed heavy enough. Were all wizards rich? They had to be, to have real coins of gold and silver and bronze.

Upon examination, the silver coin said ‘SICKLE’ on one side and ‘GRINGOTTS’ on the other. There was a dragon and a wizard’s profile embossed on either side of the coin respectively. It looked like how one might imagine a wizard’s coin to look. You certainly couldn’t just make up an entire currency of precious metal coins that easily.

"There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. You might have to buy some of your spellbooks and so on secondhand, but—"

“Where do I buy the spellbooks?” Tom said, putting the silver coin back into the pouch.

"In Diagon Alley," said Dumbledore. "I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything—"

“I can do it myself,” Tom said confidently. The less time spent around Dumbledore, the better. Tom could get this wizardry business sorted out for himself without having to constantly keep watch over his shoulder.

"I'm used to doing things for myself, I go round London on my own all the time,” he added, because Dumbledore hadn’t responded yet. Perhaps the man thought Tom was too young to be off on his own. That wouldn’t do. “How do you get to this Diagon Alley—sir?”

Tom expected Dumbledore to hesitate, to protest the idea of an eleven-year-old boy off on his own, but Dumbledore merely handed Tom the list of equipment he was to buy. He then proceeded to explain how to enter Diagon Alley through the Leaky Cauldron. Tom listened intently, making a note to enter in such a way as to not draw any attention to himself. Hopefully it was not too out of place for young wizards to travel through to Diagon Alley on their own. Although he supposed he could always lie and say there was an adult waiting for him somewhere.

Dumbledore continued, "You will be able to see it, although Muggles around you—non-magical people, that is—will not. Ask for Tom the barman—easy enough to remember, as he shares your name—"

Some of the distaste must have shown on his face, then, because Dumbledore added, his voice curious, "You dislike the name 'Tom'?"

"There are a lot of Toms," muttered Tom. But that reminded him of something else, something he had always wondered at— "Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they've told me."

"I'm afraid I don't know," said Dumbledore, his voice irritatingly gentle.

His mother couldn't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died. Tom knew the story well enough, well before Mrs. Cole had told the sordid tale to Dumbledore. His mother at the doorstep of Wool’s, her body wasted away, dressed in rags. She could not have been magic, to have ended in such a way. It must have been his father.

Dumbledore then explained how to get to Hogwarts from King’s Cross Station. Tom sat patiently through it all. He watched as Dumbledore got to his feet and held out his hand again. Tom shook it readily, eager to be rid of the Professor.

Then, as Tom knew their meeting was coming to an end and he would not see the man for a while yet, he finally posed the question that had been bothering him ever since he’d made eye contact with Dumbledore. "I can tell what people are thinking, sometimes. Is that normal for a wizard?"

"It is neither unusual nor unheard of," said Dumbledore, after a moment's hesitation, "but it is a skill that takes many, many years of practice. Older, wiser wizards than you have failed to master such an ability, let alone exercise it with the proper care. It is a dangerous venture, and not something to be taken lightly. The Ministry does not look any more kindly upon eavesdropping, Tom. I would advise you to leave it alone until you are grown."

His tone was casual but his eyes moved curiously over Tom's face. They stood for a moment, man and boy, staring at each other. Then the handshake was broken; Dumbledore was at the door.

"Good bye, Tom. I shall see you at Hogwarts."

* * *

The platform was crowded and manic. Children and their parents filled nearly every available space, bustling with their owls and their trunks. There was so much to see, more so than when Tom had visited Diagon Alley. It was noisy here, unbearably so, and Tom could pick up on the stray thoughts of everyone in his immediate vicinity if he tried hard enough to make eye contact.

Maneuvering through the crowd proved to be difficult. Tom was neither tall enough nor accompanied by someone large enough to easily pave a path. Tom, with his secondhand trunk and well-worn wizard robes, drank in the sight of the large steam-engine train—the Hogwarts Express.

It felt strange, to board something as mundane as a train to get to a magical school. But there was still a special quality to it. It wasn’t quite like passing from the Leaky Cauldron into Diagon Alley, or running into the brick wall that led to Platform 9 and ¾.

A train ride was a journey; it meant Tom was finally going to where he was supposed to be.

Tom had already read through all his school books. He had, in fact, made two trips to Diagon Alley. The first trip just to learn, to pick up the basics: a wand, a set of robes. He made lists of things and places that looked interesting. He talked to the shopkeepers and browsed the bookstores. The second trip was to purchase his supplies.

There was much to learn. An entire culture; an illustrious, secret history that was unknown to non-magical people—Muggles. The disadvantage between himself and the other wizard-born students was more than simple access to places like Diagon Alley. Ignorance would prove fatal if he was not very careful. Tom knew he would have to stretch his budget as far as he could if he was to have all of the information he needed. Dumbledore had said there was a library at Hogwarts, but Tom had the suspicion that not all books he wanted would be found there.

The train grew closer; Tom crept over to where he saw the school trunks were being loaded onto the train. His wand—13 and a half inches long, yew and phoenix feather—was tucked securely in a leather holster. The remains of the allowance Dumbledore had given him weighed lightly in his pocket.

Tom had never bothered too much with money; there was only so much you could do as an orphan in London. Orphans were two a penny, and easily replaced. Running errands had never appealed to Tom. He had begged off what he could from Mrs. Cole, combining it with what little pocket money he had. Then he’d converted the lot of it into golden Galleons, silver Sickles, and bronze Knuts at the large goblin-run bank called Gringotts.

No matter, he would be entrepreneurial at Hogwarts. Being a penniless orphan forever was not acceptable. There were many ways of making money, not all of them strictly legal, and if he could bring magic back to London, back to the orphanage, Tom thought there would be ways for him to thrive.

It didn’t matter what Dumbledore thought of him. It didn’t matter what anyone thought. Tom would block them all out when he needed to. He knew who he was, he knew what he was capable of. Slytherin house, home of the ambitious, the great, the worthy; that was where he would go. And, soon, he would find out where he had come from.

Tom divest himself of his trunk and got onto the train. It was time to start making alliances. It was time to make his way into the world.

**Author's Note:**

> omake:
> 
> tom, blabbing about the mean orphans: they're always calling me strange and creepy and a bully :(  
alex the snake, only there for body heat: uh huh keep talking but not so loudly it makes your body wiggle
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you like Tom then you'll _love_ the idea of leaving a comment, which thereby encourages more writing about Tom :)
> 
> If you really, really like Tom, you'll check out the next story in this series, which is linked to this one.
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


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